HOMILY PENTECOST 2024 St. Austin’s Austin TX May 19, 2024
HAPPY
PENTECOST!!! In our first reading
today the Holy Spirit appears as a “strong, driving, wind”. Certainly, we in
Texas know about strong, driving winds – in tornadoes and hurricanes. We have at least seen the videos of trees
swaying violently in the wind, of debris flying through the air, of
transformers exploding in a shower of sparks, of great old trees uprooted and
pushed over, of all sorts of wind damage.
And
it is true that the Holy Spirit is strong, VERY strong, and can push us, and
humble and awe us with the Holy Spirit’s power.
There
are times we most desperately need the power of the Holy Spirit. When we are all too weak in the face of
temptation, when we are tired and spent and ready to give up in facing the
challenges of life, when we are bored into being a zombie by the endless
drudgery and sameness of life, then we need the power and guidance and
the PUSH of the Holy Spirit to keep on going to become fully the Body of
Christ.
But
there is another side of the Holy Spirit that we need now as well, and perhaps
even more than the Holy Spirit’s power:
and that is the Holy Spirit’s comfort. For the Holy Spirit is not only a mighty,
irresistible wind, but also the refreshing coolness of a gentle breeze on a
hot, sultry day. Texans know the value
of a cooling breeze in the middle of August.
The Holy Spirit’s POWER
is balanced and accompanied by COMFORT.
Indeed,
one of the titles of the Holy Spirit is “Comforter”. And living through a dangerous and difficult
time of conflict and fear, we now need the comfort and consolation of the Holy
Spirit.
In
one translation of the Sequence for Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is described
thus: “Come, within our bosoms shine. / You, of comforters the
TWO TWO TWO Pentecost 2024
best; / You, the soul’s
most welcome guest;/ Sweet refreshment
here below;/ In our labor, rest most
sweet; / Grateful coolness in the heat; /
Solace in the midst of woe.”
What
does that solace look like? Well, it is
rather ephemeral, subtle and easy at times to miss. In the Gospel Jesus breathed on them
and said: "Receive the Holy Spirit." A mere breath, so small and seemingly
inconsequential; and yet so powerful, so potent! This breath gave new life, and changed
everything.
I had a powerful experience of this once, many years
ago when I was in Alaska. My first
priestly assignment was at St. Nicholas Church in North Pole, Alaska, near
Fairbanks. Just like the Summers here in
central Texas are loooong, and can be brutal,, so the Winters in the interior
of Alaska are loooooong, and can be brutal.
I lived through four of them. It
is bad enough that it is dark most of the time, with only three hours of
available daylight in the Fairbanks area on the shortest day of the year. And it is bad enough that it is darn cold all
the time, and just to go outside requires a major effort of putting on coats
and boots and masks and gloves and so on.
The coldest I ever experienced in the time I was there was 62 degrees
below zero. That’s cold.
But Alaskans, like Texans, are tough. The Alaskans can handle the cold and the dark. But the worst is the ice-fog. Ice-fog is the frozen exhaust from people and building and cars that forms a very thick, impenetrable cloud, thicker than any fog you see here in Texas. And it builds up. You cannot see in ice-fog, even with your lights on. It makes driving very dangerous. Schools never cancel in Alaska due to the cold, but they do cancel when the ice-fog builds up. You feel trapped, confined, THREE THREE THREE Pentecost 2024
hemmed-in, because you can never see very far. Usually this lasts only a short while, until the first little breeze comes along, which blows the ice-fog away.
But the winter in the Alaskan interior can be very
still; deadly still. The snow builds up
for inches on telephone wires, because there is no breeze to knock it off. And when the mercury drops below 20 below
zero, and there is no wind or even the slightest breeze for days and days, then
ice-fog builds up.
One year was especially bad. People got depressed, irritable, feeling blue
and down. School was canceled. It was dangerous to go out. You felt cooped up. Hemmed in. Trapped.
There was not a breath of air, not the slightest breeze. And the ice-fog got thicker and thicker.
Finally, there was a slight breeze, just a breath of
wind, and the ice-fog suddenly and totally disappeared. Everyone’s mood abruptly changed: instantly,
dramatically and for the better. I have never seen such a big change in an
entire community, all because of a mere breath of air. So insubstantial, so amorphous, and yet so
very powerful.
That is what the Holy Spirit is like. That breath that blows away the fog, allows
us to see and understand, to be free to go out to live again, that lifts up our
hearts and spirits.
It is the Holy Spirit that gives us the ability to
comprehend and see God’s love
for us, to understand what is really important in this life. The Spirit gives, not just intelligence, but
wisdom; the ability to know what matters in life. The Holy Spirit enables us to hear the other,
to keep an open mind, and the greatest miracle of all, to change our hearts.
FOUR FOUR FOUR Pentecost 2024
The 2nd Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation puts it beautifully: "…by Your Spirit you move human hearts (so) that enemies may speak to each other again, adversaries join hands, and peoples seek to meet together. By the working of your power it comes about, O Lord, that hatred is overcome by love, revenge gives way to forgiveness, and discord is changed to mutual respect."
That is powerful!
And that is so badly needed today in our world.
The Holy Spirit is nebulous, insubstantial, almost tenuous, but has the power to enter into
the very fiber of our hearts and souls, and change us from within. The Spirit seems fragile and
inconsequential. A mere breath, flimsy
and feeble as a soap bubble, but so very, very powerful. Jesus breathed on them, (blow bubbles) and
said, "Receive the Holy Spirit."
A mere breath.
(Blow bubbles). And yet beautiful
and oh, so powerful.
¡Come
Holy Spirit! AMEN.
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